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Thread Mill Girls: 1916

June 19, 1916. Fall River, Mass. "Kerr Thread Mill. All over 16. Having fun with camera man. Good conditions in this mill. Caps to protect hair from dust and keep hair from getting tangled in machinery. These girls worked in an operating room, not the cloth room." Photo and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.

A friend's grandmother worked in a munitions factory in England during WWII and there were rules about the women wearing their hair up and under caps to prevent their hair being caught in machinery. One girl who was the "pet" of the floor boss used to keep her hair down because the fellow liked to play with her hair when he walked by.

One day, a bit of her long, beautiful hair got caught in the machine behind her and in less than a second she was scalped. It was something my friend's grandmother cried about 50 years later when she related the story to me.

Found a spool of Kerr's "Lustre Twist" Thread in my mom's old sewing cabinet. has turned from white in places to slightly sepia from age, still has tag and was purchased from Taft & Pennoyer. Found info on this site most interesting about the company. Thank you.

Even without the photographer's note about the good conditions in the mill, you can tell it was true. The smiles on these ladies' faces seem to come very easily, which wouldn't be true if their working conditions were other than good.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.